So, William’s birthday.

I’m going to write this blog purely about you, and how you have all helped us as a family to raise nearly £10,000 for the UK Sepsis Trust for William’s birthday.

The final figure hasn’t been totalled up yet, as we still have donations coming in and payments made for auction lots that were won. But as a rough breakdown, we raised over £3,500 via William’s Just Giving page (including giftaid), for those who couldn’t attend and bought balloons and raffle tickets. The online auction raised over £950, the auction at the event raised £400. Donations on the day for raffle tickets, balloons and donations exceeded £1,000. Worldwide Financial Planning (where I work) have agreed to match fund £1,000 and we are currently waiting for Santander Bank to match fund, the amount has yet to be confirmed. A cake sale at Standard Life raised over £400 with Standard Life matching the amount raised. There was a balloon release held in Spain where my family live, this raised over €300.

There are some events still taking place, these funds will be added to William’s Just Giving page. With a target of £10,000 I think with future fund-raising we might consider a new target!!

There are so many people that we need to thank, those that donated raffle and auction prizes. Their time, their help and most of all the support. Not just from family and friends but the wider community, including all around the world. There have been balloons sent to heaven for William from the States, South Africa, all across Europe including the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Hong Kong. I am absolutely certain that William caught every single one.

Given the awful weather conditions, lots of people turned up to help us celebrate William’s birthday, it was extremely windy and rainy, typical UK style, but nevertheless, people put their wellies, hats, gloves and coats on and mucked in to help the family through what was an extremely emotionally charged day. At one point half of the balloons blew away, when a gust of wind was determined to steal our gazebo. But that didn’t spoil anything, we blew the reserve balloons up and let them go instead. As Paul, helped by all the children, let the balloons go from a big net, the Sun broke through the clouds, a perfect, tranquil and beautiful moment, I’m sure William knew. Our little two-year old was watching over us.
I would also like to say a very special thank you to a lady in Canada (I haven’t been specific with location from where they were set free to allow the students anonymity). Lydia along with her students raised and set free beautiful Monarch butterflies in William’s honor. They did this a couple of months ago, however, I thought it would be lovely to include these photos with William’s balloons. These elegant butterflies, one male and one female are currently making their way to Mexico.  Their wonderful teacher explained about William and his story and when they set the butterflies free, they all said a prayer for our little boy.

We are fast approaching one whole year without William, but that is an entirely different blog altogether. I want to sincerely thank everyone who has supported us, and restored our faith in humanity. I will shortly be putting up a gallery on my blog of all the photo’s we have received, so if you have any, please send them to me. If you are able to help us reach our £10,000 target, you can by visiting William’s Just Giving page by clicking this link I’m sorry that I might not have thanked everyone personally but we love you all xxxx